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<blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2152208" data-attributes="member: 27012">I'm not so sure that it's &quot;self-evident&quot;, but I pretty much agree with it.&nbsp; That's why I've been using the term &quot;quasi-Medieval&quot; and that's also why I've been mentioning &quot;action movies&quot;. What I'm personally looking for are ways to more clearly draw the line between where Good has an obligation to treat Evil humanely and give it an opportunity for redemption and where Good can simply smite Evil with impunity.&nbsp; Up to this point, I'd been drawing a line between creatures who I've explicitly marked &quot;irredeemable&quot; (no amount of kind treatment will ever redeem them or make them Good) and those that have more free will to choose.&nbsp; But that still breaks down in the case of human (and demi-human) villains and unknown humanoids (that haven't been determined to be redeemable or not).&nbsp; In many ways, I'd like alignment (and the detection of it) to indicate a creature's moral status for paladins and clerics and such.To a large degree, I want to avoid the sort of moral problem illustrated by this example, at least for paladins.&nbsp; I'm not looking for a morally simplistic game but I can think of plenty of hard moral choices that I'd rather tackle than how to handle captured bad guys, a situation that comes up too frequently to turn every case into a lenghty moral problem.&nbsp; I want to give paladins and clerics a way to sort the wheat from the chaff.&nbsp; That may mean that they are obliged to spare some prisoners and slay others but I want it to be somewhat clear which is which.&nbsp; And that's not to say that an irredeemably Evil creature can't beg for it's life and be spared (it has happened in my game) but that I don't want every such case to be a tough or even impossible moral decision.That's why I want to understand the distinctions that people are making.&nbsp; It can help me craft ways to make those distinctions in the game so that they mirror the more vague distinctions that people make in real life.&nbsp; For example, this discussion has illustrated the importance of specifying whether paladins, clerics, or others have the moral authority to execute prisoners and under what circumstances.Thanks for starting the thread.&nbsp; Even if it didn't go exactly where you wanted it to go, I still found it quite useful.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Morrow, post: 2152208, member: 27012"] I'm not so sure that it's "self-evident", but I pretty much agree with it. That's why I've been using the term "quasi-Medieval" and that's also why I've been mentioning "action movies". What I'm personally looking for are ways to more clearly draw the line between where Good has an obligation to treat Evil humanely and give it an opportunity for redemption and where Good can simply smite Evil with impunity. Up to this point, I'd been drawing a line between creatures who I've explicitly marked "irredeemable" (no amount of kind treatment will ever redeem them or make them Good) and those that have more free will to choose. But that still breaks down in the case of human (and demi-human) villains and unknown humanoids (that haven't been determined to be redeemable or not). In many ways, I'd like alignment (and the detection of it) to indicate a creature's moral status for paladins and clerics and such. To a large degree, I want to avoid the sort of moral problem illustrated by this example, at least for paladins. I'm not looking for a morally simplistic game but I can think of plenty of hard moral choices that I'd rather tackle than how to handle captured bad guys, a situation that comes up too frequently to turn every case into a lenghty moral problem. I want to give paladins and clerics a way to sort the wheat from the chaff. That may mean that they are obliged to spare some prisoners and slay others but I want it to be somewhat clear which is which. And that's not to say that an irredeemably Evil creature can't beg for it's life and be spared (it has happened in my game) but that I don't want every such case to be a tough or even impossible moral decision. That's why I want to understand the distinctions that people are making. It can help me craft ways to make those distinctions in the game so that they mirror the more vague distinctions that people make in real life. For example, this discussion has illustrated the importance of specifying whether paladins, clerics, or others have the moral authority to execute prisoners and under what circumstances. Thanks for starting the thread. Even if it didn't go exactly where you wanted it to go, I still found it quite useful. [/QUOTE]

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